Yuma, Arizona is famous for its scorching summer heat, but did you know that 90% of North America’s leafy greens and vegetables available each November through April come from here?

The combination of Yuma’s climate, rich soil created from sediments deposited by the Colorado River over thousands of years, and more than 300 cloudless days per year make it the best place in the world to grow such a diverse crop mix. Producing one of the best places.

In a video produced by the Yuma Fresh Vegetable Association, the Yuma Desert Agricultural Excellence Center, and the Yuma County Ag Water Coalition, hear about the critical role irrigation water plays in America’s ability to provide millions of vegetables across North America. increase. winter.

George Frisvold, an agricultural economist at the University of Arizona, YouTube videos Introduce the importance of locality. “Yuma is what Detroit is to cars and Silicon Valley is to computers,” says Frisvold as the video begins.

The region’s proximity to Mexico provides a labor force to help plant and harvest vegetables from around Labor Day through late April, but those labor forces continue to decline for a variety of reasons.

At the heart of this production is water. The Colorado River ends its course in the United States at the Morelos Dam, just a few hundred yards from the University of Arizona’s Extension Research Farm in Yuma. That water no longer flows into the Sea of ​​Cortez for Mexico’s urban and agricultural consumption.

The Colorado River is not only the lifeblood of cities like Las Vegas and Los Angeles, it is necessary for food production in the deserts of the Southwest and developed farmlands in northern Mexico.

The river has been severely overallocated in recent decades, thanks to urban growth in the southwest and an overpromise of water that goes back to the origins of the Colorado River Compact 100 years ago. We are reminded daily of this expectation and beyond, with visible declines in major reservoirs such as Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

The video does a great job of spelling out the value the river offers to the region and the United States. Without it, entire cities would die and the farmlands that feed North America would shrink.

The United States cannot afford to let the Colorado River suffer because of the voracious appetite of urban developers and the paper promise of 100 years of water supply demanded by the owning public planners. As the video points out, our domestic food supply and national security depend on the sustained availability of water from river systems.

Saving the Colorado River is not popular, especially among those with highly regarded senior water rights and urban water bodies in California. Quick and immediate action is essential.